Chain of custody (CoC) refers to the chronological documentation or paper trail, showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of evidence, physical or electronic.
Particularly important in criminal cases, the concept is also applied in civil litigation - and sometimes more broadly in drug testing of athletes, traceability of food products and to provide assurances that wood products originate from sustainably managed forests.
Read more about Chain Of Custody: Criminal Cases, Example
Famous quotes containing the words chain of and/or chain:
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
—C.G. (Carl Gustav)
“It could not have come down to us so far,
Through the interstices of things ajar
On the long bead chain of repeated birth,
To be a bird while we are men on earth,”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)